At 9.30 AM, the doorbell rang and 82-year-old Bapu opened the door of his house. He found an apple outside it. It intrigued him, to say the least. He gave it a cold but close look. It indeed was an apple, his favourite fruit. A nice, red, ripe apple plucked fresh from a tree, Bapu … Read more
It was like every other weekend coffee conversation. But it was not. Swami and Jigneshbhai were having their usual question answer session. The questions weren’t ending and the answers weren’t starting. I don’t want to get into the details of the discussion because they are not relevant today. The wealthy old man was sitting on … Read more
“You have to buy a 5-star rated fridge with a built-in stabilizer. If you don’t buy a 5-star rated fridge, then it is better you don’t waste your money on a fridge,” the salesman warned Swami. I never knew buying a refrigerator was such a complex activity. But I knew that day when we went … Read more
Most of our business or success goals are self oriented. They are related to what we want. What if we could invert them? What if they are based on what others want? This is not as idealistic as it sounds. Neither is it altruistic. Nor is it irrational. It is more rational and practical than … Read more
No one trusts anyone easily anymore. There are real reasons for it. We don’t trust the celebrities telling us to buy things. They are being paid by the company. We don’t trust tweets and instagram posts. They are new ways of getting paid. We never trusted salesmen and marketers. Now we suspect them. By default, … Read more
Swami decided to join a protest last weekend. He told me and Jigneshbhai that we are going to have coffee at a protest. But a doubt cropped up. “Is coffee allowed at a protest? Who’s going to get it for us?” Jigneshbhai and I had no idea. We had never been to any protest. “Let … Read more
Ten Thousand rupees for every boy she evaluated as her prospective groom was not bad. Six months back, Sanjana’s father had relented to this arrangement. It was a nice new source of income for her. She had never planned to get married. If possible she would never marry, but, in any case, she didn’t plan … Read more
“Everything material is changing all the time and is temporary, so for lasting happiness, we should change our focus from what is temporary to what is eternal” said our broker friend Jigneshbhai as we met for our weekend coffee yesterday. Swami and I were stumped seeing him in such a philosophical, almost spiritual mood, specially … Read more
“Artificial Intelligence is going to completely change investing” said Swami excitedly as we met for our coffee. Jigneshbhai did not react, and continued sipping his black coffee, as usual. Swami was not the one to be discouraged by that, at least immediately. So he continued with even more enthusiasm. “Machines will be reading through stock … Read more